Until just a couple of years before his death in 2005, Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow remained a dedicated correspondent, and these letters—intimate, ironical, richly observant, and funny—reveal the influences at work in the man and illuminate his novels and his enduring legacy. Friends, lovers, wives, colleagues, and fans all cross these pages, while some of Bellow's finest letters are to his fellow writers—William Faulkner, John Cheever, Philip Roth, Martin Amis, Ralph Ellison, Cynthia Ozick, and Wright Morris.

"It comes as no surprise to find that the great novelist was a great correspondent as well. I hungrily read the book through in three nights, as though I'd stumbled upon a lost Bellow masterpiece only recently unearthed."—Minneapolis Star Tribune

"These aren't dashed-off notes, but letters that required considerable care and meant much to the author, as he expresses affection and support for other writers (Ellison, Roth, Malamud, Cheever, Amis et al.), takes critics and journalists to task with well-formed arguments and offers critical commentary on the culture that provides the context for his work (a culture that no longer values the art of writing letters)."—Martin Amis